Another weekend, another cookie experiment. I had actually intended to make a completely different type of cookie today — blueberry lemon pinwheel cookies — but my heart wasn’t in it apparently and I has a spectacular cookie fail. So I started from scratch, let my mind wander and ended up with these. If you can’t find the fine shread unsweeted desicated coconut, the shreaded sweetended will do as well. Simple to make and is fairly small batch (ended up with about 36 cookies).
Ingredients
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons coconut extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup desiccated unsweetened coconut
(the fine grain kind, but you can use shredded sweetened if you can’t find the other kind)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350F. Line cookie sheets with silpat or parchment paper. While the oven is heating up, sprinkle 1/2 cup of the desiccated coconut on a baking sheet and toast for 5 minutes or until lightly golden. Be careful as this type of coconut burns very easily. Set aside to cool, then mix with the remaining, untoasted coconut.
In the mixing bowl of your stand mixer, cream together butter, sugar and egg and egg yolks until fluffy, 3-5 minutes on medium. Add coconut and vanilla extracts. On low, beat in flour and salt.
To make cookies, roll 1 tablespoon of dough into a ball, then flatten slightly. Place balls, 1 inch apart, and with the back of a wooden spoon, make indentation in top of each one. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and redefine the thumbprints with the back of the spoon again. Return to oven and bake for an additional 7-9 minutes, until golden. Let cool on wire rack and let cool completely.
Prepare the filling. Put the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a bowl of boiling water. When the chocolate is melted, remove from heat and continue stirring. Spoon filling into each cookie depression and immediately sprinkle with the coconut. If the filling hardens while using, reheat by placing the bowl back over the hot water. Let chocolate harden before moving cookies to an airtight container for storage.
